Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, and the first to see algorithms and TikTok videos deployed alongside fighter planes and tanks.

The online fight has played out on computer screens and smartphones around the globe as Russia used disinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories to justify its invasion, silence domestic opposition and sow discord among its adversaries.

For Russia, it's been a year of bold charges and bombardments, humiliating retreats and grinding sieges. Ukraine has countered with fierce resistance, surprising counteroffensives and unexpected hit-and-run strikes.

Now, on the anniversary of Russia's invasion that has killed tens of thousands and reduced cities to ruins, both sides are preparing for a potentially even more disastrous phase that lies ahead.

The northern West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian commercial center, resembled a war zone on Wednesday, after a daytime Israeli military raid triggered a firefight that killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 others.

It was the latest bloody escalation in a monthslong surge of Israeli raids into the the occupied territory that has led to the deaths of some 200 Palestinians and the arrest of at least 2,600 others. Last month, a similarly deadly raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin triggered a Palestinian attack outside a synagogue in Jerusalem and a burst of rocket fire from Gaza.

Ahmed Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister and one of the architects of interim peace deals with Israel, has died at age 85.

A key player in the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Qureia witnessed the rise of the dream of Palestinian statehood that surged during the negotiations. But he also saw those hopes recede, with the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict drifting further than ever. Domestically, Qureia was riddled with corruption charges that tainted his reputation.

The Islamic State group has carried out its deadliest attacks in more than a year, killing dozens of civilians and security officers in the deserts of central Syria, even as people of northern Syria have been digging out of the wreckage from the region's devastating earthquake.

The bloodshed was a reminder of the persistent threat from IS, whose sleeper cells still terrorize populations nearly four years after the group was defeated in Syria.

The death toll from the collapse of an open pit coal mine in northern China has risen to five, with 49 people still missing, state broadcaster CCTV reported Thursday.

Work had been suspended for several hours after an additional landslide at the gigantic facility following Wednesday's mine collapse in the vast Inner Mongolia region's Alxa League.

Palestinian militants in Gaza launched rockets at southern Israel and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the coastal enclave early Thursday after a deadly gun battle with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank killed 10 Palestinians.

The bloodshed extends one of the deadliest periods in years between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, where dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the year. Palestinian attacks on Israelis in 2023 have killed 11 people.

Demolition teams are clearing mounds of rubble from the devastating Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, as emergency responders scramble to shelter survivors — who were traumatized anew by Monday's magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Turkey's already badly battered province of Hatay.

That quake killed eight people in Turkey and Syria and demolished or damaged more buildings, leaving countless homeless. The combined death toll from the Feb. 6 earthquake in both countries stands at around 46,000 — the vast majority in Turkey.

The High Court of Justice in London has ruled that SAVARO Ltd is liable toward victims of the Beirut port blast and will have to pay compensations, the Beirut Bar Association Prosecution office said Thursday.

On 4 August 2020 , hundreds of tons of explosive ammonium nitrate, typically used in fertilizers, detonated, killing more than 200 people, injuring over 6,000 and damaging large parts of Beirut.

On Dec. 22, 1985, The Associated Press reported the following from Blue Ridge, Georgia:

"Investigators searching for cocaine dropped by an airborne smuggler have found a ripped-up shipment of the sweet-smelling powder and the remains of a bear that apparently died of a multimillion-dollar high."